Homeopathic Potency Selection

-- Dr. Manish Bhatia

Hubbard says for the diseases of psychic origin the high potencies should be employed. Functional diseases too with subjective symptoms respond well to high potencies. Acute disease, even with pathological changes, will also need high potencies, while in acute crisis of chronic diseases such as cardiac asthma, medium or low potencies would be preferable. In chronic cases, it is safe to begin with 200C. She prefers high potencies in cases with marked mental symptoms. She also writes "In desperately ill cases, where the fight for life is active, in acute diseases, the high potencies are indicated; also, where the desperate illness is in the terminal stage of chronic disease the very high potencies induce euthanasia. In chronically incurable cases, unless the vitality is very good and pathology not yet too extreme, low or medium potencies are suitable"

She further writes: "The degree of susceptibility of your patient also influences potency selection. Certain persons are oversensitive (often owing to improper homoeopathic treatment) and they will prove any remedy you give them; they require, therefore, medium or low potencies. Other patients are very sluggish (often owing to much allopathic drugging). These will often take a very high potency to get any action at all or they may need a low potency repeated every few hours until favorable reaction sets in. A third type of patient is the feeble one where the vital force can easily be overwhelmed. Repetition is the greatest danger here. Acutely sick, robust patients will stand repetition of high potencies until favorable reaction commences, although the ideal is the single dose. Children take high potencies particularly well, and in general the very aged require medium potencies except for euthanasia. Some individuals have idiosyncrasies even to homoeopathic potencies of certain substance. Some degree of idiosyncrasy to a remedy must be present or the patient will not be sensitive enough to be cured, but where this is extreme the low or medium potencies should be preferred. Where patients are habitually poisoned by a crude substance, as a general rule it is not advisable to give that substance in very high potency, it is better to give an antidotal substance high."

P. Sankaran has laid some tentative rules for potency selection -

1. When in a case, the symptoms of the patient are very well matched by the symptom picture of the drug and especially if the mental symptoms are present and clearly marked, then a high potency seems advisable.
2. (a) Where the symptom matching is poor due to paucity of symptoms or (b) when the prescription covers only a superficial or local condition e.g. a skin condition such as a wart or (c) where pathological symptoms predominate, e.g. as in cancer, congestive cardiac failure, etc. or (d) where only a palliation is aimed at because the patient is incurable and has a very low vitality, low potencies seem more advisable.
3. Certain medicines seem to act better in particular potencies. For instance, drugs like Apocynum cannabinum, Sabal serrulata, Ornithogallum umbellatum, Hydrocotyle asiatica, Passiflora incarnata, Crataegus oxycantha, Adonis vernalis, Strophanthus hispidias, Carduus marianus, Blatta orientalis, etc., seem to act better in O.
4. Nosodes seem to act better in high potencies, e.g. 200 and above.
5. As regards bowel nosodes, certain rules apply. If the case is a new one and the patient has not received any potencies so far, a medium or high potency can be given when the bowel nosode is clearly indicated. If the patient has received any potency within the preceding 3 months it is wise to give a low potency. John Paterson writes that where there is marked pathological evidence, low potencies (below 6C) can be given and repeated daily. In acute diseases, the single high dose is preferable. For acute phase of chronic disease, high potencies can be given and repeated at intervals.
6. If the patient has already received a deep-acting constitutional drug in high potency and is improving under the action of this, but has developed some superficial disturbing symptom, a low potency of a complementary drug may be prescribed for the relief of the symptoms.
7. Children appear to tolerate high potencies well due to their vitality while old persons may not tolerate high potencies so well.
8. When the patient is oversensitive to drugs, it is wise to use a low potency.
9. When the reaction is poor and a reaction remedy is prescribed to promote reaction, e.g. Carbo veg., a high potency is to be preferred.
10. Probably intelligent and sensitive patients and those engaged in mental occupations need higher potencies while the dull and the backward and those engaged in physical work may need the lower ones. Extending this idea, it seems that the less highly evolved animals may need lower potencies.
11. Certain potencies may produce certain effects, e.g. it is said that Silica given in low potency promotes suppuration, whereas if given in high potencies it aborts suppuration.
12. High potencies of deep-acting medicines such as Silica, Phos., etc., are contraindicated in advanced pathological states.

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